


Saved

by Lizstrade



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Five Stages of Grief, Healing, Hurt, I don't know what else to tag, Inspired by Music, Lost Bucky, M/M, Music, Post-Break Up, Sam POV, Song Lyrics, blame, bucky pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 08:01:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11271396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizstrade/pseuds/Lizstrade
Summary: The hard part always seems to last forever.Sometimes I forget that we aren’t together.Sam Wilson was like a dream. Bucky watched him like he was some memory forced into his head to make him forget the ones that had really happened. A memory so farfetched, too good to be true. Sam was broken, he was torn, he had his own demons but he was also sweet, understanding, helpful, and beautiful; the incarnation of good. That’s all Bucky could ever do to describe him: good.





	Saved

**Author's Note:**

> Saved- By Khalid.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyg32hMf7Fk

***Bucky's POV***

Bucky no longer had a hard time with the underlying ability to remember life events from the past and present. He no longer couldn’t remember who he was, those he knew, or what he’d done. However, he often wished that his dry spell of memories could return for a fleeting memory of what may have been the happiest moments of his life. Selective memory, if you will.

 

_The hard part always seems to last forever.  
Sometimes I forget that we aren’t together. _

Sam Wilson was like a dream. Bucky watched him like he was some memory forced into his head to make him forget the ones that had really happened. A memory so farfetched, too good to be true. Sam was broken, he was torn, he had his own demons but he was also sweet, understanding, helpful, and beautiful; the incarnation of good. That’s all Bucky could ever do to describe him: good.

 

With such a label to live up to, Bucky often felt crushed by the pressure that he had applied to himself. Sam was good, not chaotic good, just good. Bucky couldn’t be described as good by his biggest fan. He was brave, loyal, strong, but not good. The constant reminder from Sam’s heartfelt words that everything was going to be okay, even when he had to remind himself of those things moments prior, was Bucky’s shining beacon hope on hard nights, but his undoing on the following mornings.

 

That’s why Bucky had to leave. Not for himself, but for Sam. He was no good, not for anyone. Sam had his own problems, his own needs, his own wants, but had Bucky to worry about. Everyone had Bucky to worry about, but he needed to worry about himself, he was no one else’s burden, least of all Sam’s.

 

_Deep down in my heart, I hope you’re doing alright.  
But from time to time I often think of why you aren’t mine. _

[Log #1,219]

I left today. God, I don’t know why I left today. I know why I did. I thought it was best. I thought it was best for everyone but I don’t know if it was best for me. Or for Sam. I told him, I told him that I didn’t love him. That he was just a remedy but he couldn’t help anymore. ~~I know it wasn’t~~ I know it isn’t true and he does but the look on his face didn’t show that at all ~~. He did nothing but help me and I jus~~ This needed to happen. I was pulling him down. Sam deserves better. I was trying but Sam deserves better. He looked at me and I wanted to take it all back. I wanted to tell him that I just needed to keep getting better for me. But everyone says “you can’t love anyone until you love yourself.” I don’t. I need time but now I have plenty of time. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m scribbling, I’m jotting. I’m panicking. ~~I just.~~ He looked at me like I drove a knife through his heart. He told me that I was lying. I was lying and he knew but I didn’t let up. I told him I wasn’t. I told him and I lied and now I’m on a bus just letting it drive. I should call him. I need to call him. I I I. I keep saying I need to focus on me but that’s all I’m doing. I should call him. I can’t. I’m rambling. I’m scribbling. I should call him. I should stop acting like

 

Bucky closed his notebook, a sentiment to his past forced dementia. A log that he continually jotted thoughts, feelings, and occurrences of everyday life in. His now empty hotel room only littered with small amounts of clothes and stacks of journals. His older ones of his times that when a memory formed he’d write it down as quickly and legibly as possible. As to trap his memory in time, to freeze it on the page in case it was to fleet him again.

 

His newer ones were to keep his head steady. To keep him focused and attempt to keep the panic and angst to a minimum. Then that’s all they became. Without Sam. It was his decision, his choice, but it didn’t make it easier for him. It didn’t make him think about the man any less. It didn’t make him stop reading the same log over and over, although the memory was seared into his brain like a bad nightmare to a child.

 

Ordinary things reminded him of Sam. A song on the radio, a color of a shirt, a tone of someone’s voice, a smell from a restaurant. He was running from Sam, and often it felt harder to run from him than it did to run from people actually chasing him. A hard realization, that he wasn’t chasing him anymore. That the fight that he had caused to allow the other to keep from chasing him did just that. He sealed his own fate, and it was one he wasn’t sure he was prepared for.

 

 _But I’ll keep your number saved,_  
‘Cause I hope one day you’ll get the sense to call me.  
I’m hoping that you’ll say,  
You’re missing me the way I’m missing you.

 

Bucky looked at his phone, his phone that he worked at a diner to pay every month. He stared at his phone. He’d decline calls from Steve, frantic texts from Natasha. They could find him if they wanted, but they knew, they knew after what happened that the last thing Bucky needed was unwarming faces to remind him more of the life he had chosen to leave behind. The family he had chosen to leave behind. All he wanted was to musk up the courage, to abandon his pride, to be able to dial the number he had doubted had been changed. Or perhaps more so hoped. The number that he had memorized before he could call Sam his. The number he hoped had been left because Sam wanted the call as much as Bucky did.

 

He hoped that Sam knew that he needed Bucky as much as Bucky needed him. That he realized that he wasn’t good, that he wasn’t a dream, but that he was trying. He hoped that Sam knew that no one would love him the way he had. Yes, he left, yes he had said horrible things but it was for him. For him to be able to be happy even if it took a moment of unhappiness. He had done it for Sam. No one would allow the pain Bucky felt for someone else. It was for Sam… It was.

 

 _So I’ll keep your number saved,_  
‘Cause I hope one day I’ll get the pride to call you.  
To tell you that no one else,  
Is gonna hold you down the way that I do.

***Sam’s POV***

Relationships were by no means easy. Sam was old, experienced, wise, he knew that. He was by no means an expert, but that he knew for sure. His and Bucky’s fight was rough. It wasn’t a slow and wordless fight but one you could feel in your stomach. One that made you wonder if you could ever look at them again. The kind that sent you to bed with tears in your eyes.

 

Sam did get sick of having to be the strong one, the perfect one. Everyone put this label on him like he wasn’t allowed to feel pain, or sorrow, or hurt, but newsflash: he was. He wasn’t Bucky’s babysitter, therapist, housekeeper, maid, chef, or mother; he was Bucky’s boyfriend. Sam had his fair share of loss, he had his own war, his own dreams, his own days where laying in bed was better than facing the outside world. The difference between him and Bucky: he had learned to cope. He was by no means perfect, he had his issues like everyone else.

 

That’s what made it so hard to hear Bucky say those things. Sam was his partner and he knew Bucky had been through more than he could imagine, but to so blatantly ignore his feelings in the name of “his wellbeing” was selfish. The worst part Sam knew his game, he knew what he was doing but he did it anyway. He lied to keep himself from getting attached because he was scared, because he didn’t think he could handle it and Sam knew that. Sam said they could take a break, that Bucky could focus on himself but he continued to dive.

He wasn’t sure why but when he woke up that morning he expected for Bucky to be on the couch. For the previous night to have been another one of his bad dreams, but it wasn’t. It was life, fucking amazing, perfect, life. For a moment, he had to just breathe. Sit back and cope because it was hard, because love is hard and he let it happen. He let himself fall and he didn’t think it would be easy to get back up.  
  
He stared at the empty places where Bucky’s clothes belonged and felt, nothing. He didn’t allow himself to feel anything because if he did he wouldn’t get out of bed. He’d lie there and hope that it didn’t happen. He wouldn’t be okay, he wouldn’t be able to pretend to be strong because god damnit he wasn’t always fucking strong. He deserved to be vulnerable and he deserved to be happy, and he deserved… A lot. But in that moment as he stared at the blank spaces of hangers, he wasn’t trying to feel, he wasn’t trying to be alright. He was trying to survive.

  
Now I can’t say I’ll be alright without you,  
And I can’t say that I haven’t tried to.  
But all your stuff is gone.

 

The first step Sam took was make it until the weekend. Work, run, shower, eat, sleep. His routine had reached an all-time high in repetition but when home didn’t feel like home that’s what you did. You did whatever you could to keep your mind and body away from your soul, to preserve it. Once he could come to terms with it, slowly the photos from the walls were removed, then from his phone, then from his social media. He knew that he could have ran after Bucky, he could have begged him to come home, but that’s not what he needed. That’s not what he could do. Bucky hurt him, and he needed to realize that. Bucky hurt him.

 

 _I erased all the pictures from my phone_  
Of me and you  
Here’s what I’ll do.

 

If there was a book called “How to make your life easy” Sam would have purchased it five years earlier, but there wasn’t, and he hadn’t. He was by fault an optimist and while everyone else told him that it would be best to move on, to leave Bucky to do what he needed to do, Sam couldn’t. Not for Bucky, but for himself. He would constantly check his phone to make sure that he didn’t have a missed call. To make sure that Bucky didn’t send him a text saying he wanted to go home. To see Bucky telling Sam that he felt like he couldn’t breathe, that his chest felt tight, that he couldn’t sleep, that life didn’t feel the same. To see if Bucky would tell him that he was missing him the way that Sam missed him.

 

 _I’ll keep your number sa_ _ved_  
‘Cause I hope one day you’ll get the sense to call me.  
I’m hoping that you’ll say  
You’re missing me the way I’m missing you.

 

“I shouldn’t have.” Sam sighed out, stirring his coffee.

“I know.” Steve watched his friend closely, because that’s what he needed, a friend.  
  
Steve knew whatever the two of them were doing wasn’t healthy but it wasn’t his place to intrude it wasn’t his place to say anything but that he knew and that he understood, even though he wanted to chew Bucky out for being an idiot and Sam for allowing Bucky to run around in his head. He deserved better.

“I want to call him. To just--- I don’t know. I won’t. I can’t. I shouldn’t but I think I should.” Sam tried to explain himself. Once so articulate, but recently trying to express himself had turned into something not at all easy.

“Sam you-“

“I know,” Sam cut Steve off with a look far before his words. “I know deep down that I deserve better. That I didn’t do anything to get him to run off but—He needs to know. Someone needs to tell him that I was good to him, for him. That I was so fucking good to him. That I loved him with every fiber of my being. That I took a change. That no one would take a change like that! That I loved him. I loved him. I love him.”

 

 _So I’ll keep your number saved_  
‘Cause I hope one day I’ll get the pride to call you.  
Tell you no one else  
Is gonna hold you down the way that I do.

 

Sam thought of all the classes that he had taken. All of the words that he memorized and thought about during work. The words and feelings he advised others to apply but never did so for himself. Pots and kettles. He’d been through denial. He’d woken up and wouldn’t believe that Bucky wasn’t there. He wouldn’t take his pictures down or quit making two meals for dinner, just in case he came home. He had bargained with himself. He had made inward promises he’d be better about nagging, anything, as long as he’d come home.

 

Finally, he got to anger, when he blew up on Steve over him, where if his name was mentioned he would feel his blood boil. Then he remembered what he told others to do. When you’re angry if you write a letter to someone, even if they won’t get it, it helps, so that’s exactly what he did.

 

James,  
I don’t know what I ever did to you. I don’t know why you let me go. Why you were so careless and stupid to let a love like mine go to waste. I hope you think of all the times we shared. I hope you’ll finally realize I was the only one who cared. You make love, something that is supposed to be worth it, seem so fucking unfair. You won’t find a love like mine anywhere.  
Sincerely,  
The One You Let Get Away

 

 _I hope you think of all the times we shared,_  
I hope you’ll finally realize I was the only one who cared.  
It’s crazy how this love thing seems unfair.  
You won’t find a love like mine anywhere.

Depression wasn’t an easy one, but when he finally allowed himself to feel it, to stay home and cry, and wear sweaters and shirts he left behind. To go to his drives and find his backed photos, to mourn the death of something he thought could be good. It felt good. It felt good to cry, it felt good to allow himself to really miss Bucky, to really type in his phone number and want to call. To really just need him.

  
_But I’ll keep your number saved_  
‘Cause I hope one day you’ll get the sense to call me.  
I’m hoping that you’ll say  
You’re missing me the way I’m missing you.

 

After being able to mourn the loss of their relationship, Sam was able to move on. Bucky wasn’t coming home. It’d been nearly six months and he didn’t want to be found. He didn’t want to hear anyone’s voice, especially not Sam’s. Sam had a hard time, and he wasn’t sure if he was alright, but he would learn. He would be able to move his carry on back down to a man purse with time. His baggage would not rule his life, it wouldn’t. He actually was able to go on dates and converse with friends. He was able to not think about Bucky and make two plates of food every night. He was able to be happy and hear his name without getting angry. He was able to delete his number and not wait on himself or Bucky anymore. He was finally okay. Finally over him.

 

 _So I’ll keep your number saved_  
‘Cause I hope one day I’ll get the pride to call you.  
To tell you that I’m finally over you.  
I’m finally over you.

  
  
[1 Missed Call: Unknown Number]  
“Hi Sam, it’s, it’s Bucky. I know, I know that you probably. You probably hate me and I hate me too, trust me I really do, but I miss you. I haven’t stopped and what I did was selfish and I’m hiding behind my phone months later but I can’t get over you. I can’t stop thinking about you and I thought I was doing it for you, I thought I was running away for you but I wasn’t. I was running away for me because I felt intimidated and I shouldn’t be doing this over voicemail but I still love you. Please call me back. Please. Just. I just want to see you. God Sam, I’m so so—“

 

 _So I’ll keep your number saved_  
‘Cause I hope one day I’ll get the pride to call you.  
To tell you that I’m ~~finally~~ still not over you.  
I’m ~~finally~~ still not over you.

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic was my first of a series I may be doing with lyrics tied in like this, or perhaps actually having the characters saying them (not like a musical because I'm not that clever). Anyway, tell me what you think. I understand that it's super depressing but that's how the song is as well but as soon as I heard it I couldn't help myself. I also wanted to give it one of those awful movie endings where it's like, "this could be good" but you don't quite know. I hope you enjoy it!


End file.
